Good afternoon everyone. My name is Bill Williams and I am the U.S. Attorney here in
the District of Oregon. I'm joined by Renn Cannon, Special Agent in Charge of
the FBI here in Oregon. More than 20 years ago, in July 1997, Joseph Mahmoud
Dibee, a resident of Seattle, Washington, traveled to Redmond, Oregon where he and
four co-conspirators burned Cavel West, Inc., a local meat packing house, to the
ground. The arson took place on July 21, 1997.
The group arrived at the Cavel West facility wearing dark clothing, masks, and
gloves. One co-conspirator carried buckets of fuel; Dibee carried timing
devices. Two other co-conspirators had previously purchased bars of glycerin
soap, which they cut into pieces and mixed, in a blender, with a gasoline and
diesel fuel to create a highly-flammable gel. Once on scene, Dibee
drilled holes behind a building's refrigeration unit, using nearby noise to
muffle the sound of his drill. He then poured the flammable gel into the holes
and secured them with rags. Three explosive devices were placed around the
building. As Dibee was preparing one of the devices, it ignited prematurely and
the group fled before lighting the remaining two. At approximately 4:00am
that morning, a salesman who was preparing the deliveries at a nearby
factory spotted smoke and flames coming from the Cavel West facility and
immediately called 9-11. Within minutes, the Redmond Fire Department responded.
Little could be done to keep the flames from spreading to adjacent buildings and soon,
the entire facility had burned to the ground. The fire resulted in a total loss
of 21. I'm sorry, $1.2 million dollars. This event
was only one of the pre-planned, organized crimes
Joseph Dibee is alleged to have participated in while affiliated with the
Earth Liberation Front, also known as ELF, and the Animal
Liberation Front, known as ALF. These are known environmental extremist groups.
Dibee and his co-conspirators, known as "The Family," have been linked to more than
40 criminal acts occurring between 1995 and 2001 that ranged from vandalism
to arson and caused more than $45 million in damages. In 2006, a
a federal grand jury in Oregon indicted Dibee and 11
co-conspirators as part of Operation BACKFIRE, a long-running FBI
Dibee faces three felony charges here in Oregon: conspiracy to
commit arson, conspiracy to commit arson and destruction of an
energy facility, and arson. Additionally, Dibee is under indictment
in the Western District of Washington and the Eastern District of
California on related charges. Dibee fled the United States in December 2005.
Recently, federal authorities learned that Dibee was traveling through Central
America en route to Russia and had a planned stop in Cuba. In partnership
with the State Department, U.S. Coast Guard, and Department of Homeland Security, the
FBI arranged for Cuban authorities to apprehend Dibee before he boarded a flight
to Russia. In total, Dibee had evaded capture for more than 12 years. So today
we recognize the FBI's unwavering pursuit of justice. This case is a
testament to the incredible lengths the bureau will go in order to locate and
apprehend fugitives and we thank them for their hard work.
Dibee will now join eleven other co-conspirators who faced charges here
in Oregon and were prosecuted. All eleven of these co-conspirators were convicted and
sentenced to prison ranging from 41 to 156 months.
Restitution orders ranged from $122,000 to $17 million. On additional fugitive
remains at large from Operation BACKFIRE, and I will turn it over to SAC Cannon
to speak to those details.
Every act of violence comes with a choice—a choice to
do harm. Such choices cause irreparable damages to families, businesses, a
researchers life's work. Such choices may risk the lives of firefighters who
respond to fires in our homes or our businesses. Most of the defendants in the
FBI is long-running Operation BACKFIRE investigation have answered for their
actions with significant prison sentences and millions of dollars in
fines. Mr. Dibee who traveled the world to avoid
capture will now finally have to answer to allegations of violence with
which he has been charged. The JTTF asked for the public's help in locating
Josephine Sunshine Overaker so that she too may be held accountable for the
damage that she's alleged to have cost. The FBI continues to offer a reward of
up to $50,000 for the information leading to the arrest of Overaker.
A few facts about Ms. Overaker: she's known to have used multiple birth dates,
including that of an infant who is known to be deceased. We believe she is 43
years old and that she was born in Canada and holds dual citizenship.
Ms. Overaker has a distinctive tattoo, a bird tattoo, that starts on her right
shoulder and runs across her back. You can see it in this photo.
She's a fluent Spanish speaker and believed to have fled to the U.S. in
2000 to 2001, likely having spent some time in Spain. Other unconfirmed sightings
have placed her in Europe over the years. She's known to have experience working as a
firefighter, a masseuse, a midwife, and a sheep tender, and she's known to have
been a vegan at the time of her disappearance.
Ms. Overaker, like Mr. Dibee, faces a series of significant charges related to
the actions of "the Family" in the Operation BACKFIRE case. In Oregon, a
federal grand jury indicted Overaker on nine counts including conspiracy, arson
attempted arson and destruction of an energy facility. She faces additional
similar to federal charges in the Western District of Washington and the
District of Colorado. With that, we'll be happy to take your questions.
[Inaudible Question]
Yesterday, yeah. Mr. Dibbey was officially taken into
custody. The arrest was was completed when he arrived in America yesterday
afternoon.
[Inaudible Question]
So I can't get into too many of the details on an ongoing case, but
what I can say is that we put out international red notices, we
put out different wanted, basically an international system, that there's
fugitives. So we had information that arrived from that, we rely on the
teamwork of our partners, and so we again, we thank the Department of Homeland
Security, the Coast Guard, the State Department, and the Cuban authorities as
well for assisting in the arrest.
[Inaudible Question]
You know, I think obviously in time how this case plays out in terms of it
moving through the system those facts will play out. I mean extremist groups of
this nature engage in this conduct because they have a variety of
motivations that are you know anti from anti-capitalism to whatever their
beliefs might be that they believe so strongly and they're willing to commit
federal crimes to, I guess, get their message across.
[Inaudible Question]
We really can't comment too much on ongoing investigations and we try
not to comment specifically on specific threats that we're seeing, but extremist
activity does continue in the United States and it spans the gamut, so I won't
get into too many details, but I think, you know, we see examples of extremist
activity around the country. Some of its inspired by international actors some of
it's inspired by domestic extremists and some of it's inspired frankly by past
actors, school shooters, people who have put together their manifestos, and
disturbed people may latch on to that, people who are looking for guidance so
that's one of the things, that's the mission of
the FBI's JTTFs is to try to assess those threats, to determine which are realistic
threats, route people and services and try to help people that need to help and
work cases appropriately to mitigate those threats for the serious actors.
[Inaudible Question]
Well, as I outlined, I think we both outline in terms of the extent of their
conduct in multiple states, millions of dollars in damage to property and
buildings, businesses that they disagree with in terms of their being in
existence. This was, I believe, that this was
historically the biggest overall in terms of the overall conduct in multiple
states one of the biggest collection of this kind of extremist activity in the
history of the United States.
[Inaudible Question]
You know we're not going to comment on that today. This is an ongoing
investigation. All I think we can say is we appreciate very much the cooperation
with federal law enforcement and international partners throughout the
world on a variety of matters involving fugitives, but other than that we don't have any further comment.
[Inaudible Question]
Um, well, we chose to bring him here and the other districts will follow.
[Inaudible Question]
Well we don't want to go into the details of that. Mr. Barrow would have
outlined what was necessary in terms of the first appear appearance today, but
it's very clear I think generally speaking most people who are on the run
use a variety of means to disguise their true identity - aliases, false passports,
things of that nature; it's pretty common.
[Inaudible Question]
Yeah, I know all of that information is detailed and that will
be provided as we go forward, but it's pretty extensive.
There's a lot to get through in the press packet but that's why it
was provided because it's pretty detailed. Yes ma'am.
He was officially arrested here in Oregon when he was brought back to Oregon.
That's where the official arrest was effectuated.
Alright, thank you very much.
For more infomation >> Cruis'n Blast Arcade - Death Valley - Duration: 2:49. 
For more infomation >> Chevrolet Cruze está em baixa nos EUA, Canadá e Coreia do Sul - Duration: 4:22. 
For more infomation >> Lucas Peracchi cotto di Mercedesz: Eva Henger e Georgette commentano - Duration: 3:52. 
No comments:
Post a Comment